tron start up---problem

knight rider

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Ok, having a small problem with my tron. When I turn it on I get garbage on the screen, or even sometimes I get the white grid on the screen. If I go in the back and push in the red button for a sec on the board, it re-boots and everything is fine, perfect picture, game is ready to play can play it all night long, but I have to push the red button on pcb board only one time at strat up if i get those screens

Any ideas?

Any info or help would be great

Thanks
 
most likely its something in the reset circuit on the power supply pcb. Find the purple wire on the harness that connects to the cpu board, and read its voltage - it should read 0v and go to +5v shortly after the game is powered on. If its not reading those, the board has to be manually reset to boot properly.
 
I know the purple wire is hooked up, and read about it being hooked up or taken off. With the game off I'am reading 5+volts on the purple wire at the pcb harness and when I turn the game on, I am reading the same 5+volts at the harness.
 
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it should read 0v when the game is off. Something's whacky somewhere.
Are you measuring on dc V?
 
yes dc volts, i have a switching power supply in there and its hooked up on the +5 volts terminal
 
won't work - or at least not reliably, plus, the reset line should be current limited with a 1.2k resistor. For the board to boot reliably, the reset line should hold low for a short period of time after the game is powered up, then go high.
The easiest way is to get SPDT a mechanical relay - 12v ones are easy to find, wire it to the +12 to power the coil, then wire gnd to one input, +5 to the second input, and run the purple wire to the output of the relay. The mechanical delay from the relay is enough to make the board work reliably. Thats how i have my tron cab set up.

Regardless of what you do, you need to have that current limiting resistor in the purple wire if your not using the original p/s pcb. If you hold the reset button down for any length of time, you'll pop a trace on the pcb, as your creating a direct short between +5 and gnd.

edit - you can try unhooking the purple wire, but i've yet to see a tron that would boot with it unhooked. I've seen people say that they boot fine without it, but i've never been able to reproduce that with my test rig.
 
won't work - or at least not reliably, plus, the reset line should be current limited with a 1.2k resistor. For the board to boot reliably, the reset line should hold low for a short period of time after the game is powered up, then go high.
The easiest way is to get SPDT a mechanical relay - 12v ones are easy to find, wire it to the +12 to power the coil, then wire gnd to one input, +5 to the second input, and run the purple wire to the output of the relay. The mechanical delay from the relay is enough to make the board work reliably. Thats how i have my tron cab set up.

Regardless of what you do, you need to have that current limiting resistor in the purple wire if your not using the original p/s pcb. If you hold the reset button down for any length of time, you'll pop a trace on the pcb, as your creating a direct short between +5 and gnd.

edit - you can try unhooking the purple wire, but i've yet to see a tron that would boot with it unhooked. I've seen people say that they boot fine without it, but i've never been able to reproduce that with my test rig.

Very neat idea- I was going to suggest snipping the purple wire, I've done this to mine and it boots up fine with no issues. I've heard this can solve many a Tron problem but the method explained here seems to be a more optimal solution instead of taking the easy way out.
 
thanks guys for the info. when I got this, someone did some stuff in there, they hooked up a switcher, use part of the original power supply, etc... I was thinking of getting the power adapter to solve all the problems in there and get it organized from arcadshop.

>The problem is the purple wire having 5volts when its off, if it stays the same right now and I just reset the button on the board will that be okay for now?
 
>The problem is the purple wire having 5volts when its off, if it stays the same right now and I just reset the button on the board will that be okay for now?

Something is not right. There should be no DC voltage present in that machine with the power off. I'm betting who-ever wired in that switcher.....wired it before the on/off switch. This means...as long as the machine is plugged in.....your motherboard and power supply is running! With the machine off, check the AC input of the switcher....120VAC present?

Edward
 
Hes got a seperate plug for the power supply so I have to plug both into the wall 1 for the power supply, one for the cabinet. Couldnt I just plug the 1 for the power supply right into the outlet in the bottom of the cab?
 
Hes got a seperate plug for the power supply so I have to plug both into the wall 1 for the power supply, one for the cabinet. Couldnt I just plug the 1 for the power supply right into the outlet in the bottom of the cab?

You could....but that plug stays live! It doesn't turn off when the power is off.

Edward
 
ok, I LL make sure its corrected ILL fixed that problem tonight, I wire it in so it doesnt have any power when the game is off.Witht he game off there should be no power to the switcher dc or ac correct?
 
Hes got a seperate plug for the power supply so I have to plug both into the wall 1 for the power supply, one for the cabinet. Couldnt I just plug the 1 for the power supply right into the outlet in the bottom of the cab?



You can do this but the only difference this will make is the convenience factor of not having to stretch two cords to your wall outlet.

As long as the cord going to your line filter remains plugged in, the outlet in the cab stays on because it is not switched. So if you cut the game off via the main power switch up top your switcher will remain on unless you shut it off yourself assuming there is a on off/switch on the power supply.
 
Sorry, forgot to look at the second page of the thread to see the same answer I posted above two posts earlier >_<

If wired correctly and the game is off there should not be any active ac or dc present.
 
ok, thanks for the help and info on it, i will correct this problem later tonight and update the thread.

thanks
 
ok, tried to re-wire the switcher, having a problem locating a good spot for the a/c white wire to go to. I took the black a/c wire and connected it to the brown wire on the 4 terminal block after the line filter, I took the green wire(ground) connected it before the line filter where another green ground was. Where would be a good location to connect the white a/c wire? Any ideas?

thanks
 
There are a few methods on which to wire in your switcher, of course before you wire it up anywhere you want to use your meter and test for ~120V AC. You also want to make sure you wire it in to where the switcher will be switched on and off via the main power switch up top.

In my opinion the following are two of the easier, more organized ways to do so:

Take your three AC wires and wire them to the input (tabbed) side of your isolation transformer. Black goes to the 115V tab, white to 0V, and there should be a blank tab for ground down there too.

Or, you can simply wire the AC lines from your switcher into the wiring for the light fixtures; if you are looking at the back left side of the cabinet there should be a big mess of wires there. I can't remember the colors offhand but I believe there are blue/white, brown/orange, and green/yellow wires can splice your AC lines into. Of course this involves some hacking of the original harness, so you may not want to go that route. A little more accessible than the iso. trans though.
 
ok I will try that, before i do on the transformer, theres tabs on the top and bottom, with the same numbers, does it matter if on top or bottom tabs?
 
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